


Playing the game

by dafna



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafna/pseuds/dafna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malcolm has 18 hours to establish himself as a political colossus. Sam does it in five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing the game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malana/gifts).



> This is a Sam POV of the events of "Spinners and Losers" and as such contains lots of fucking swearing. Thanks to [wreathed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed) for the Britpick.

Malcolm is the first person to call her Sam. It starts a few months after she starts working for him, when it becomes clear that unlike her five previous predecessors, she might actually last out the year. In the beginning, she assumes it’s a timesaver — why shout three syllables when you can shout one? She doesn’t mind, in any case.  
  
She soon realises that Malcolm chose “Sam” deliberately, and starts to wonder if she’d even have been hired in the first place if she’d had a less flexible name. Few of the ministers and advisers who wait in Malcolm’s outer office connect the brunette fetching them tea with what they assume is a male PA named Sam. (She’s not Scottish either, which helps.) “Sam Cassidy” thus becomes another of the diversions Malcolm uses to trip colleagues up and gather information.  
  
Over time, even the stupider members of the government (or their aides, at any rate) begin to know who she is. This means fewer accidental leaks and a lot more sucking up. (She keeps the flowers, but gives the chocolates to Malcolm’s driver.) But by then she’s built up her own intelligence network of PAs and other junior staff. Malcolm refers to them as her Downing Street Irregulars and asks for updates with his coffee. She rolls her eyes but can tell that underneath the mocking, he’s secretly quite proud.  
  
No relationship is perfect, of course. The day after she keeps the badger issue entirely off Malcolm’s desk until she and William at Defra have sorted it, he calls her into his office.  
  
“If you want to be my fucking mum, you’ll need to add three stone and learn how to bake biscuits hard enough to knock out a grown man at 20 paces. Though, honestly, that last skill would be fucking useful around here anyway.”  
  
Sam stands with her pen and pad in front of the desk and waits to see if this is going anywhere.  
  
“Trust you, Sam, to actually be too sodding efficient.” Malcolm sighs and wipes his hand over his face, and then waves it at the papers on his desk. “If you weren’t so fucking helpful I’d have a nice ticking bomb of a problem to scare a bunch of ministers with, but instead all I’ve got is a fucking Harrods hamper with a fucking bow on it.” He waves his hands in the air again. “Chaos, my dear girl, is a spin doctor’s best friend. If you’re going to make waves, it’s a lot easier to hide them in a stormy ocean than in a calm fucking pond.”  
  
She nods her head, and makes a mental note. If it’s problems he wants, she can put any number of them on his desk. When a friend at the DWP tells her that winter fuel payments are being sent to fictional pensioners registered as living in a block of flats owned by the junior minister’s second cousin, Malcolm is so excited he runs past her down the hall, screaming happily into his mobile. He takes her to lunch the next day at the posh curry place they both like and delights in describing to her how he verbally disemboweled “the thieving fuck.” She giggles the whole rest of the day thinking about it.  
  
Because Malcolm has plans for everything, Sam’s not worried when she hears the early rumours about the prime minister’s departure. She's confident that somewhere in that Machiavellian mind there’s an algorithmic list of potential ways to spin the power transfer to his (their) advantage. She ignores Jamie’s warnings too, and kicks him out of her bed earlier than usual when he refuses to shut up about it. She’s not sleeping with Jamie for the political discourse, after all.  
  
(Malcolm never asks her why she is sleeping with his deputy, but she can see him wondering, sometimes. The short answer is there are definite advantages to being seen (wrongly, but still) as another way to solidify Malcolm’s favour and a girl can only use so many flowers. The longer answer would involve something about how she doesn’t have time to have a real relationship and doesn’t really want one either, but that might lead Malcolm to express similar thoughts and they’ve both got too much to do to spend a lot of time getting sentimental. For her part, Sam wonders whether Malcolm’s more jealous of her or of Jamie, but pondering the history of that twisted relationship leads down another dangerous path.)  
  
All of which is to say, Sam is as taken by surprise as anyone when the prime minister abruptly announces he’s resigning, effective in a month. She feels like she’s failed Malcolm by not being more prepared, but she switches from guilt to active concern when she finds him in his office a few hours later, staring at a wall. He waves her away when she asks if she can get him anything.  
  
“I’m fine, Sam,” he says. “Just, I need more fucking time. I thought I’d have a few weeks at least, but at this point it may be all over by tomorrow. God save the mighty fucking Tom. All hail the Age of the Nutters.”  
  
She backs out of the office, closes the door and leans against it. More time, she thinks.  
  
Jamie is first, being both easily at hand and well, easy in general. He walks with her to Costa Coffee, venting all the way about how this is all Malcolm’s fucking fault, for being so fucking careless as to not only fuck up the immigration legacy, but to fuck up the fucking up, leading Julius to go crying to the PM. She buys herself a latte and murmurs between blowing on it that it’s a real shame that Tom is just going to waltz into Number 10 without any real competition.  
  
“Even if it’s for show,” she says, “surely it’d be better for the party to run Tom through the washer a few times, see if he bleeds all over the place.”    
  
Jamie nods. “I tried to tell Malcolm that this morning, but he’s so far up the boring bastard’s bum he needs a fucking snorkel. Anyway, who’d be stupid enough to run against Tom? Are there MPs who actually _want_ to be sent to fucking Northern Ireland?”  
  
“What you need is a kamikaze candidate,” Sam says. “Someone who hates Tom — or Malcolm — so much that they’d screw up the coronation just for spite.”  
  
She walks on a few more paces before realising that Jamie is no longer with her. She looks back and sees him standing on the pavement, apparently deep in thought. She smirks. Easy.  
  
Sam gets back to her desk to find Geoff Holhurst waiting anxiously. If there is anything more annoying than a government minister, it is a former government minister.  
  
“Malcolm around?”  
  
“No,” she says firmly. Giving a reason only encourages them.  
  
“Oh.” His shoulders slump. “It’s just that I had a few ideas I wanted to toss around.”  
  
Sam thinks about it. Geoff Holhurst is hardly the biggest stone to throw into the pond but she supposes throwing in a few extra small ones can’t hurt to stir things up. She makes an appointment for him to come back later that night.  
  
The biggest stone is Dan Miller, of course, but he’s both smarter and more slippery than your average backbench MP. Plus, since his sister works in the PM’s special research unit, he’s got spies everywhere. She thinks again, and then pulls out a set of Treasury forms.  
  
“Thanks heaps, Sabrina,” Sam says, leaning against the cubicle wall. “Today has been just insane.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” Sabrina says, with a wry smile. “I’m suddenly the most popular research manager in Whitehall, and just for the record, no, I have no idea what my brother’s plans are.”  
  
Sam waves her hand at her. “Oh god, of course, sorry. But honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’ll all be over by tomorrow.”  
  
Sabrina looks up from where she’s signing her name. “That quickly?”  
  
“If not sooner,” Sam says. “Pat says the Nutters are talking about a morning press conference to introduce the whole team. Anyone who wants to make a play before that has, what, 6 hours before _Newsnight_? It’s not a lot of time.”  
  
Sam takes the papers back from Sabrina, but doesn’t move to leave. “Mind you, if it were me, I think I’d just want to get a good night’s sleep and hit the _Today_ programme tomorrow morning.” She yawns. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I think I’m just hoping I can a good night’s sleep myself tonight. Pat says the Nutters are setting up camp at the Royal Horseguards, and I get exhausted just thinking about poor Rachel. Do you know Tom’s PA? I think we need to get up a collection to send her to a spa after all this.” She straightens up. “Oh god, is that the time? Sorry, I have three more offices to hit.”  
  
She doesn’t have a good excuse for stopping by the Legacy office, but as Julius Nicholson is one of the least socially adept individuals she’s ever met, Sam isn’t worried. Sure enough, he’s in his office and takes her casual offer to see if she can be of any help as genuine.  
  
“Gosh, that’s very nice of you, er,” Julius flails a bit. Sam is pretty sure he still doesn’t know her name.  
  
“Oh, it’s nothing, Mr. Nicholson,” Sam says. She offers a fake nervous laugh. “I’m also looking for a reason to avoid Malcolm for the next few hours, you know.”  
  
Julius looks appropriately concerned. “I’m so sorry. I’m very cross with him myself, you know. To take the PM’s legacy project and leak it to the opposition! It’s unheard of. But of course, you have to deal with him all day.”  
  
Sam tilts her head. “Oh, he’s not so bad. It’s just the next 24 hours are really important, and so he wants to make sure that nothing goes wrong.”  
  
“What could go wrong?” Julius pushes his glasses up off his nose and then lets them slip down again.  
  
“Oh, you know, there’s always something,” Sam says. “Malcolm says the last thing we need right now is a Home Office problem or another DoSAC screwup.” She looks at his desk. “Can I get you a coffee? And maybe some extra biscuits?”  
  
Malcolm is back in the office when she returns, looking more his usual self.  
  
“OK, Sam, here’s the plan. We don’t have time to go build a fucking tunnel so we’re just going to shoot our fucking way out.”  
  
Sam is 99% sure that’s metaphorical.  
  
“Our target is Nick the Nutter,” Malcolm continues. “We have 18 hours to get him out and me in that fucking press conference with Tom. Fortunately, Tom is so fucking paranoid he thinks his wife leaks to the press. I mean she does, but that’s not the point.”  
  
Malcolm leans back in his chair and tents his fingers in what Sam thinks of as his Bond villain pose. She stifles a giggle and tunes back into what he was saying.  
  
“Half the fucking party thinks Tom is on the brink of total nervous collapse anyway, so all we need is someone to stir things up, call the _Mail_ , whatever. Nick’s about as steady as a fucking ball pit. One hint his precious Tom isn’t such a sure thing and he’ll make fucking Philby look loyal.”  
  
Sam looks down and smiles.  
  
“Oh fuck me, Sam, what have you done?” Malcolm sits up and glares at her. “Do we need to have the talk again about what happens when you dabble in the Dark Arts on your own?”  
  
“Calm down, Malcolm,” she says. “I haven’t spoken to the press, just stirred things up a bit locally.”  
  
He raises his eyebrows.  
  
“I just had a quick chat with Sabrina, Dan Miller’s sister who works in research? That’s all. Well, and I told Geoff Holhurst he could come back and play senior statesman later tonight. So that might set off some nicely shaped waves.”  
  
(She doesn’t tell him about Jamie, but she should get to have some fun too. If she’s never going to get to see them actually fuck, fucking each other over will have to do.)  
  
Sam leaves the office at the positively civilised hour of 6 o’clock, soon after hearing from Pat that Dan has in fact been booked on _Today_. She calls Rachel, Tom’s PA, to make sure she knows, waves at Malcolm, and sets off for the Tube. One Chinese takeaway and a hot bath later, Jamie calls to complain that Malcolm’s rumbled his plans to set up Cliff Lawton as a candidate.  
  
She murmurs something consoling (while thinking, “seriously, Cliff Lawton?!”) and waits for Jamie to take a breath.  
  
“Well, it's probably for the best,” Sam says. “We just have to hope no one leaks that story about Tom’s pills or it’ll be Prime Minister _Pop Idol_ all over again.” She stretches, making sure Jamie can hear her low groan through the phone. “Will I see you tonight at all, do you think?”  
  
The small pause before Jamie excuses himself to run back onto the pitch makes Sam smirk to herself, but she’s not surprised to hear him mumble “maybe next time” and cry off. She can only imagine the night they have in store, everyone jockeying for position, making the start of the London Marathon look orderly.  
  
Sam gets a good night’s sleep.  
  
The next morning, she eats toast while listening to Dan Miller tell the Radio 4 audience that Tom has his firm support. When the bell rings, she opens her door to find Malcolm in the hall, carrying flowers.  
  
“Who died?” she asks, but takes the flowers as he follows her in.  
  
“Oh, you’re so very witty,” Malcolm says. “Though, ask me again in a day or two. I expect Ben Swain’s mum would like a condolence call.” He takes off his coat and sits down, watching her find a vase to drop the flowers in. “Half my night was orchestrated by you, wasn’t it? I mean, I know you talked to Dan’s sister and Geoff, but I’m guessing you also dropped a hint to Julius and Jamie?”  
  
Sam turns around and puts her hands on the chair facing him. “Cliff Lawton was definitely not my idea.”  
  
“Noted,” Malcolm says. “Did you get Fat Pat to call Tom as well? That was definitely an inspired piece of work. Nothing like senior communications telling the PM to think about withdrawing to kick up a massive typhoon of shit.”  
  
“Did she do that?” Sam asks, delighted. “I do like Pat, but that wasn’t my idea. She didn’t wind up as senior communications for nothing, you know.”  
  
“Well,” Malcolm says, “you’re still my favourite person today.” He smiles and makes a show of checking his watch. “Want to have sex?”  
  
She laughs out loud.  
  
“I’ll make you a cup of tea.”


End file.
